Bruno Hope

Bruno Hope - Photo by Nigel JAMES

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Beneath A Roman Moon

Life is a journey of risks and sometimes great danger. But, for some people, perils and hazards are just part of the course, and, Bruno Hope is just such a person!

It was 1945. Bruno Hope was busy walking home across Italy. He was a young man; he had survived his war, and Vienna, although still far away, was getting nearer and nearer. But then the partisans struck!

He went down in a hail of bullets. With one of his shoulders completely destroyed, and his heart holding on for all it was worth he passed out. And there, beneath a Roman moon he lay, waiting to die - in a pool of crimson deepening blood! 

But not for ever, his death was not meant to be, a gipsy had told him so – and he believed it!

The doctors fought hard to save him, and they did a wonderful job. But his left shoulder and arm had been too badly hit to repair. They would never work again! But Bruno Hope thought differently, and, so it was, that he went to work on himself.

He began by lifting the lightest of weights, and, within eighteen months of hard work and increasing the load, his arm was back once again to full strength. He had managed to cure himself and get himself working again. He had fought the impossible and won!

And that’s how Bruno’s life has been ever since. Downs are for getting up from and not giving in to; and, most importantly, what ever authority tells you, follow your own inner voice and do what it tells you! It usually knows best!

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What the Dickens!

Resting Sails - Schnitkunst by Nigel A.  JAMES

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An Unknown Destination

Sometimes, the wherever it is that we are going to turns out to be different from the expected; and sometimes we know nothing at all about our planned destinations. And, it was whilst reading Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby that I discovered, in a semi hidden backwater, the following anecdote.

Nicholas Nickleby, whilst on his way from London to Yorkshire, was involved in an accident. The coach upon which he was travelling overturned, and Nicholas Nickleby, being an outside passenger, was thrown into a snow drift. He and all the other passengers survived to tell the tale, and, whilst waiting in an inn for a new coach, one of the passengers, by means of making their wait more speedy and comfortable, told the following story.

There was, once upon-a-time, a German Baron, Baron Koeldwethout. He was a very happy man who spent most of time hunting, getting drunk, and generally having lots of good fun. But, one day, he started to get fed up with, what was, in reality, a very boring existence; and so, to cut a long story short, he got married.

But, 12 years later with a miserable never happy domineering wife and almost 13 noisy uncontrollable little barons and baronesses (one was still on the way) to keep and to feed, he discovered that he was sorely missing the life of revelry and drunkenness that he had sacrificed upon the altar of domestic happiness.

Things were bad; and, to add to it all, his money was spent. The only way out, he believed, was the bringing about of a premature end to his life; and, so, there he was, all alone with a bottle of wine, his knife to kill himself with, and a final pipe. But, he was not alone, for there, in the corner, was the genius of suicide!

It turned out, that the genius of suicide was a somewhat miserable apparition in a hurry. There were, after-all, many others waiting for him, and the next one on the list was a young man who had too much money! Upon hearing this, the Baron burst into laughter. How could someone kill himself because he had too much money? Totally absurd! And then the baron started thinking!

Was where he was about to go to better than where he was now? The genius of suicide was, without any doubt at all, not a very happy thing. What was everyone else like? The Baron changed his mind, and, after getting his life in order and becoming once again happy, died many years later.

And, what about Nicholas Nickleby? He resumed his journey and became an assistant in the school which belonged to the notorious alcoholic and child hater, Mr Wickford Squeers.

You can leave a message, diarikom@gmail.com

A Winter's Journey

Winter’s Journey - photos by Nigel A. JAMES, Maxi and Aranka ACS

A Winter’s Journey

On February the 15th, of this year, we took an Hungarian rail journey from Gyor to Veszprim. This is probably one of the shortest, and, at the same time, one of the longest rail trips that exist!

It takes almost three hours to cover the eighty kilometre distance, but the journey is well worth the time. On its way south, the train passes through some of the most scenic and majestic landscape that I know. There are forests, there are moors, and, of course, there are the villages and towns with all of their likenesses, their varying differences; and, of course their visible histories!

The pictures show Max whilst sleeping, the track from where we had come, where we were going, and the last of the winter ice.

You can leave a message at, diarikom@gmail.com

Dr. Alexandra Lanz MD

Alexandra Lanz   photo by Nigel A.  JAMES

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Suspended Realities

Alexandra Lanz is unique! She is young, she’s a mother, she’s a surgeon, and, above all else, she’s alive! And, being that way is the one thing about her that’s special! For her way to where she is now is something that few have encountered!

When she was 14 years old, she experienced a trauma that stopped her life in its tracks! After collapsing a school, she was taken to hospital with a suspected liver complaint. She was to remain there for the next five years!

Her stay in hospital was not only a period of suffering and despair, but also a time when the future stayed hidden and well out of reach behind a curtain of drudge and monotony. Hospital life was all about tests, and more tests and pain and more pain, and, worse still, time never ending. And her youth, her best time of all, was draining away, and, there was nothing she could do!

She was in a state of suspension, hanging somewhere between how she was before, and where the future was taking her; and it seemed as if she wasn’t moving at all. But, she was moving, for she had one very strong thing on her side, she had hope!

It was her hope that gave her the strength that she needed to believe. And the thing that she believed in was her conviction that she would, one day, walk out of the ward as a whole and healthy person. And, true enough, that one fine day really did come!

But, first came the transplant. After many long days of waiting and debating and considering, Alexandra eventually got given a new life. Her liver transplant operation was a perfect success; and, it was whilst lying under the knife, that something happened to her that she will never forget.

It was an out-of-body experience! There she was, floating calmly above herself and watching all that was happening! This was something so moving and so totally fine and unexplainably confirming. She knew that her hope and her faith had not been in vain; and, she also understood that her life was beginning again.

Coming back to life meant another kind of struggle. She had finished her first life with out anything. Her new life was one full of action. Getting an education wasn’t easy, but, without it, she would never have been able to study medicine and become the surgeon that she now is. But, there is something else, too, which she is now, and this is because of a miracle!

She was told her that becoming a mother would be out of the question! Well, she now has two very healthy boys and a super man at her side! The impossible happened. Alexandra Lanz is the first woman on earth who gave birth to a child after having had a liver transplant! She is not only a woman of history, but an example for others to follow, as well.

Alexandra discovered that there is, in fact, a life after life, and - also - a life before death, too!





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